


By the Sword

by Zenthisoror



Category: Death Note
Genre: Alternate Universe, Drama, Fencing, Gen, Humour, POV Yagami Light
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-28
Updated: 2015-09-28
Packaged: 2018-04-23 18:26:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,669
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4887142
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zenthisoror/pseuds/Zenthisoror
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In another time, another place, the tennis match was a fencing duel: Beautiful, sharp and deadly precise, upon the piste they existed for the perfect moment and made each other real. Occasionally, it might have been fun. En garde. Are you ready? (Death Note Fencing AU one-shot)</p>
            </blockquote>





	By the Sword

**Author's Note:**

> The idea for this story came from an interview with Obata Takeshi and Ohba Tsugumu, in which, apparently one of them said that the tennis match was originally going to be a fencing duel. I love fencing (quite a fair amount, although I was never especially high level at it - call me the university club mascot for enthusiasm and the occasional wildcard they whipped out to scare the opponent, maybe?) and I thought it would be fun to do a Death Note AU fencing one-shot, with sections that may vaguely outline or represent certain scenarios. I'd be interested to see if anybody spots them (if anybody even reads this). The way I read it, the epee match loosely correlates to the Lind L Tailor fiasco, the sabre match to the Yellow Box Warehouse, and the foil match to every other clash in between, but those are very loose guidelines.
> 
> This is my first fanfiction in the first person. I hope that I did some justice to Light. He's certainly not one for self-deprecation but I imagined that he could be prone to fear and insecurity, a touch of obsession, considerable solipsism and an ego that could sink the iceberg that sunk the Titanic.
> 
> Apologies in advance to epee and sabre enthusiasts. I like all weapons personally - they each offer a different assortment of fun. I just imagined that Light, perhaps, might have some stronger opinions, if he was a fencer.

The piste is a battleground on a pedestal.

And when the wires have been clipped and the salutes been made, when the masks come down so that all you see of each other's faces are the whites of their eyes and the ivory of their teeth, just before a voice, that might be the wind, or might be the rain, calls, ' _En garde'_ , there's a perfect moment.

In that moment, everything lives by the sword.

Time condenses to the point of steel, to the leather twists of the French grip that presses into your wrist, and the pulse that thuds back as if trapped behind a door. Space constricts to the arcs and lines of blades and limbs and the echoes in the future of heels kicking off striped floors.

Your existence has a purpose, has been drawn and made defined. Your script is in the fight, in the righteous display of strength and speed to tear down an insolent challenger, in the exercise of cunning in outwitting a presumptuous parry. Their plans must be obstructed and they have acknowledged you to do so.

You exist for him as an obstacle that must be there for him to be real and prove himself living, or else he might as well not exist as all, and he exists for you.

There is only you, your opponent and the fight to be had. The abstract stakes of championship, of honour, duty and reputation have been silenced. You hear the static rush of blood like rainfall and it fills your ears and sings silence through your veins and seeps through skin to the bone. It's the prelude to the mass and the mass is for a world in colour with its outlines absolute, made assured by simple dichotomies, a world clear-cut as the sides of a blade, and it's a world hard as tempered steel with a cruel and beautiful edge and every dance worth dancing balances upon it.

You wake up from a dream of being awake, smell the spice of old sweat in the neckpad and the rust of blood and metal.

In that moment, you accept each other's worth, your role in their fate and their part in yours, and you give each other your future in a simple handshake.

You may as well be the only two truly awake people on Earth and only the two of you on the top of the piste, this lonely tower, can see it.

The referee conducts the game with hands that open out like gates to hold back tides then close in to allow the flow. He allows you briefly to come together, to touch, to allow reds and greens to burst in the corner of your vision and test that the horns are ready to sound.

And the moment is over in a beat of an instant and a splintering of a raindrop.

"En garde," he says.

You've been 'En garde' since the moment you stepped up to the task, had the words pushing through your heart with every anticipatory pulse, and it seems taboo to hear them spoken aloud.

_En garde is a formality, a hand upon a heart, a hood upon a hawk._

"Ready?"

You're ready to exist, to interfere in his world and make him exist in turn. You're ready to be seen and be real.

_Ready to live?_

"Fence."

Wake up. Live by the sword.

_You have permission to kill._

* * *

He came to the piste in baggy jeans.

"Light. Over there. Do you know him?"

The piste. In jeans that blades could snag and get snapped in. It just wasn't the done thing. "Who?"

"That new guy. He's been doing nothing but stare at you all warm-up."

I didn't need the captain to tell me. I'd felt his eyes on me throughout the entire footwork session, and I'd been watching him back – out of the corner of my eyes, of course. There was no need to grace him with the privilege of my full attention or the satisfaction of knowing that he was distracting me.

How I knew that would satisfy him, I didn't know. Call it instinctive, but a man who came to the piste in baggy jeans and proceeded to squat on the benches and fumble with his shoes like Stone Age man might once have done with fire seemed, for all purposes, born to offend me.

And may he remain there in the Stone Age, separated from me and my game by millennia of civilisation, enlightenment and the invention of shoes. There was no need to even look at him, or confront the feeling like a cold touch of the wind on the back of my neck that, somewhere, I had seen this man before.

I was sitting on the benches, tightening the screw in my pistol grip with an allam key when a shadow fell over me.

"Yagami Light."

Was that a fly from the kit cupboard that I could hear buzzing in my ears _?_ I rested the foil across my knees and continued twisting the key. The grip had come loose over the weekend.

The shadow remained where it was.

"Your father is Chief Yagami Souichiro of the NPA," it continued quietly, and in the bustle of set-up for the session's training only I would have heard him, cunning bastard. "You greatly respect your father, your respect for him matched only by your strong sense of justice."

I stopped turning the allam key, just for a moment, because this was going beyond simple peer reputation now. This man, whoever he was, had done _research._

There was some chance that he may have been an obsessive fan, but there was a prickling insistence at the back of mind that said this man was different and that I needed to be very much _en garde_.

"You're planning to join the Police Agency when you graduate, but until then you have an exceptional talent for fencing that has placed you first in the National Youth Championships in your age-group for the past four years. The first year foil, the second epee, the third sabre, and the fourth," the man's thumb was at his lower lip, its corner turned up in a breezy little smile, "in all three weapons."

I had to admit, I liked the sound of my own voice. I had an excellent voice. I could tell people that they were valued members of society who, upon death, would be able to look back on their life and be satisfied, that however mediocrely they had lived, they had left an impact that despite being about as substantial as a ladybird's footprint was still significant in the grand scheme of things, and the idiots would actually believe me.

But the way this man spoke, low and quiet and as matter-of-fact as a kick to my face, I believe in drama they called this a monologue. In which case, the bastard wouldn't 'EXIT, PURSUED BY A BEAR' and let me go until he had said his piece.

I was still waiting for him to introduce himself.

"My background is somewhat similar to yours. I provide the occasional consulting service to the police when necessary, and I've long held an interest in swordsmanship. Sometimes the two fortuitously combine, but those cases are rare." The man scratched the inside of his left leg with his right foot. He wore fencing shoes, which meant he fenced ( _Well done, Light_ ), at least to a reasonably competent level. "I was informed of your abilities. I was impressed by what I heard."

I wondered which weapon he fenced. I usually had a good instinct for this. By the speed of his approach and the directness of his statements, I thought I could peg him as a sabre man, but I couldn't be sure. This man was shredding my 'usually's into the wind simply by hunching into my personal space like a consumptive gargoyle determined to become a shadow.

"If you promise not to tell anyone, I have something important that I would like to share with you."

He wasn't backing down, but as he spoke I reconsidered having him thrown out of the gym. There was something he wasn't telling me and whatever it was, I wanted to know, however insignificant it may turn out to be, and until I could tell if it was safe to ignore him, I needed to keep him within arm's reach.

After all, that was where I was deadliest.

He bent down to peer into my face. "You've been very quiet. I am not sure whether to believe that you are truly listening to me."

"Oh, you have my attention." With a final squeal of protesting metal, I finished tightening the grip on my favourite foil and set it aside. "Whoever you are, you're here to test my abilities, although you've yet to tell me truthfully why."

"Fun, largely, and to satisfy personal curiosity, and questions of my own pursuit."

The man's smile was a beat later than it should have been to be sincere and didn't quite reach his eyes.

"Alright. Whatever you tell me, I won't tell a soul." People were beginning to look across in our direction. I waved them away and they went back to shouting for spars, admiring the captain's shiny new epee and demonstrating that their scalps could fit in the cup of a large woman fencer's breastplate. "What is it?"

He was suddenly so close that I could see nothing but his eyes and my own picture-perfect reflection in them.

"I wanted to tell you I'm L."

I didn't respond. I was rather proud of that. Any lesser human being would have stiffened or flinched or perhaps even dropped the allam key they were twisting into their pistol grip.

L. Of course.

L, champion swordsman, Team GB, the man who had done the unprecedented and stood on the podium for all Men's Singles weapons class at the last Olympics. L, who, as it turned out, was some faceless international detective who was summoned by panicking police as a last resort like a demon from the underworld.

I should have guessed. Who else could he be?

_Of course, he wasn't L!_

Then again, nobody knew what L looked like. He had come from nowhere and vanished to nowhere as soon as the Olympics tournament had finished. His face had been perpetually hidden behind a helmet even whilst collecting his medals. His entry qualifications, classified.

Gods knew how much the GB team had bribed the IFF with or what excuses they had presented to the Olympic Committee to grant L so many special favours, but he came to the piste in his helmet and left it in his helmet, and thanks to the garish Union Jack painted over the mesh it was impossible to tell who was underneath.

They called him 'The Liar'. The intentions he broadcast with his body were completely mismatched by his eventual bladework. His style was unpredictable, unorthodox and utterly unscrupulous so long as the points hit and scored.

L the Liar. The name 'L' was obviously a code - therefore an open lie. His age was probably a lie too. That he had represented Great Britain didn't mean much for pinpointing where he came from. Britain was an ethnic melting pot and its people could have multiple citizenships, so even if his British nationality wasn't a lie it certainly might not have told the whole story.

For all the world of fencing knew, L might have been bred in an underwater cave by scientists and governments to set the rest of us an impossible standard, which I soon discovered wasn't impossible at all, for those who had the mind, will and discipline to try.

Although if L had been raised in a underwater cave it would explain why he looked so pale and had those huge deep-sea fish eyes.

…assuming, of course, that this man was the legendary 'L' that he claimed to be. The real L, who had been so secretive, would surely never admit to such a thing.

…but if he was L, he most certainly wasn't at a university fencing club session for the sake of trying on its stinking club breeches or parading around with a breastplate on his head.

I looked up. He was adjusting the braces of his breeches and shoving his arm through an under-plastron in the most elaborate dance of elbows I had ever seen.

No, I couldn't afford to ignore him. On the off chance that he really was L, I needed to be everything his profile of me said I was, and the rising star fencer and son of the Chief of the NPA would have no need to be afraid of him.

The rising star fencer, faced with a man proclaiming to be a champion, and the son of the Chief of the NPA, dealing with a deeply suspicious stranger, would only want one thing.

I looked him straight in the eyes. "Well, if you are who you say you are, you have only my respect and admiration."

"Thank you."

"However, if you don't mind me saying so, this does all sound rather far-fetched."

"I imagine it does. I suppose you would want proof of my identity."

I tossed up my foil, stood, catching it lightly by the hilt before it could drop. "You can't claim to be L and not expect me to ask for a bout."

"Of course." The strange little man didn't even blink. He picked up a plastron from the musty pile heaped on the bench and slung it over his shoulders. "I would have expected nothing less. I chose to reveal my identity to you because I believe you could be of some help to me with a recent interest of mine. Perhaps this would serve as a way of getting to know each other."

The lines of the pistol grip fit snugly into the grooves of my hand. "Then you agree to a bout?"

"No."

"Excuse me?"

"Three bouts, Light-kun." He smiled. Aa strange gleam in his eyes reminded me of flying steel. "One for each weapon."

Perhaps he was mad. Perhaps he was profoundly stupid - the unfortunate victim of serious delusions of grandeur - but a speed run through all three weapons, if this man really was L, how could I ever possibly refuse?

"I would have expected nothing less." I sent the man's own words back at him with a smile. "First to five for each?"

"And best of the three."

"Done. What am I to call you when we've yet to prove that you are who you say you are?"

"For the purposes of this tournament, Ryuuzaki will do."

"Light!" shouted the captain from the other end of the hall. "Are you and your new friend going to be doing any fencing today or should I call and book a table for two in a tea room?"

I pretended to laugh along with the rest of the forgettable nobodies, and called back, "We'll be taking the piste by the east window!"

"Fine, fine, the east window."

He marked it onto the board, which was unnecessary, because the east window piste was mine in all but name.

I turned to 'Ryuuzaki' and indicated the piste by the window with a sweep of my foil. "Shall we?"

* * *

"Which blade first?"

"I hear that Light-kun favours the foil. As I am partial to the sabre, perhaps we should begin with the epee?"

_Partial to sabre. Ha!_ I didn't hide my smile but tried to make it agreeable as opposed to smug. "Epee it is."

"This is just a friendly bit of duelling, Light-kun." He rummaged through the bag of blades that had been propped up in the corner and examined the guard of a battered epee. "Nothing more."

"Of course." I tested the tip of my epee. "Nothing more."

* * *

We stepped up onto the piste.

As I rose from clipping myself into the left-hand spool and looked down the line of markings on the gym floor to the man who called himself L, I wondered when he had last been made to taste defeat.

In fencing, be it victory or defeat, either way there would be the phantom taste of blood.

The captain had seen us wiring up. When he caught sight of the epees, his favoured weapon, he sidled across the gym and came to stand by the piste.

"Epees, Light?" He put his hands on his hips, postured. "Should I be worried?"

I was tempted to tell him that he should always be worried because I could probably beat him with half a brain debating utopian philosophies, but the epee wasn't my weapon. Perhaps it was the closest weapon to true duelling, given that a point could be scored on anywhere on the body, including the head, but that meant you could be declared a winner simply by scratching the opponent's toes, shoulders, or shins, without hitting anything truly _significant_ to the opponent at all, and no win was really worth it if the opponent didn't lose something of real value.

"Well, this certainly looks interesting. I haven't seen you fence epee in a while," the captain went on, the interfering prat. "Do you need a referee?"

I was about to refuse when 'Ryuuzaki' spoke up. "That would be much appreciated, if Light-kun doesn't mind?"

I schooled my face into a smile. "Not at all. Thank you, Captain."

* * *

We saluted.

The salute, it was a pledge of honour.

We would honour our opponent by fighting to win and accepting nothing but his absolute defeat.

We would honour the piste by presenting upon it only the best of games.

* * *

There was a perfect moment.

Points trained upon each other's chests, bodies marginally twisted to present as little of the target as possible. I could see the shadow of my reflection, dark and distorted, in the curve of his bell guard, and in the huge dark eyes behind the helmet mesh.

"En garde."

We crouched low. I felt my heart thud heavy and bloody in my throat.

Epee, full-body target, no right-of-way, double-touches allowed.

He could come at me from anywhere at any time.

"Ready?"

This bout would be about anticipation, being three steps and a lunge ahead of the opponent. It would mostly be long periods of watching from a distance with the occasional test, tease, and taunt, then reaping the results and calculating what should or could be done next.

Then a flash of decisive action, before a return to watching and waiting for the next move to be made.

The captain dropped his hands. "Fence!"

I stepped forward, so did he.

Nothing remarkable about either step. They were neither big nor small, nor especially fast nor slow. We closed the distance in a measured silence.

The first to move would initiate the pattern of exchange. They would also be the first to give away something of their nature, how they fought (thought) and acted (reacted), and their base preferences (principles).

He was within my reach. In fact, he had gotten within my reach fifteen centimetres ago, but he didn't need to know that yet.

So I tapped his blade, gave it a playful flick that wasn't even a beat.

It was just a tease, to see how he responded. 'L' didn't even jump, but his head tilted like a dog pricking its ear. I'd got his attention at least.

And then, as if I wasn't worthy of it, he pulled his blade away.

Complete absence of contact. Not only that, but he opened his guard and stepped back, backed away, and stopped presumably where he thought he was out of my range, and I seethed that he could be so presumptuous to drop his guard in front of me!

With a yell, I kicked off my back foot in a lunge, throwing out my left arm for balance, my right flying forwards in a long, explosive line of sleeve and blade, point dropping and curling to disengage the parry of his blade that the twist of his wrist was sliding into, but it would all be useless, useless, useless, because I had him –

_Beep!_

Green light flashed.

I froze, glanced down.

In the last moment before my epee would have connected squarely with his chest, 'L' had taken the smallest of possible steps back, and, deftly angling his blade, had pressed the point oh-so-delicately to the very tip the foot I had extended for the lunge.

_Bastard!_

"Well, well, well - point goes to my right, to our mysterious newcomer." The captain was laughing. "This guy's pretty good, Light."

There was really no need for the captain to sound so goddamn pleased about this turn of events, but I pretended to agree.

"Yes, he is good, isn't he?" The smile on my face was probably a little strained. "Touché, Ryuuzaki."

He affected a bow. "Thank you, Light-kun."

I gritted my teeth. There was really no need for 'L' to seem so pleased about it either, but that was epee for you – with all of its low tricks and dick moves, its myriad ways to leave the opponent feeling lost and utterly humiliated.

"Back to your lines and we'll continue. _En garde…_ "

* * *

In the end, the epee game was mine.

I got swift revenge for that first point, following it with a stop-hit, which was essentially allowing 'L' to come forward with his peculiar double-jointed steps then impaling himself on my sword. His surprise was more pleasurable to see than I expected. The next point was a double-touch, both red and green lights flashing as one, with myself marginally faster but not fast enough to make it my point alone.

By four all we had started to attract a small crowd. Perhaps they were taking bets. I wasn't listening and I didn't care, but I certainly did care that they were there to see me leap in a fleche that was fast enough to press through 'L's# defences and, despite his deflection with a parry prime, I scored the fifth and winning point with a sharp flick to his left shoulder blade as I flew past him.

"And Light wins, five-four, with a right honourable stab to the back." The captain was sounding far too amused for his own good, but as we pulled off our helmets, I couldn't help but note that he was looking a little pale, his grin somewhere in the realm of the sublime between awed and terrified. "Well fenced, gentlemen." He wiped a line of sweat from his temples. "I…er…I think I need to sit down."

* * *

We helped each other do up the zips of our sabre jackets. Usually it was gesture of courtesy, a show of respect to the opponent or camaraderie with the person you were sharing the piste with. In our case, it was all part of the charade of getting to know each other, a way of circling in closer without allowing the other any chance to blink or turn away.

Arms and torsos covered in silvery metal lamé, we returned to the piste, holding our helmets by their silvered bibs in our left hands and sabres in our right. I had been watching 'L's expression as he picked up his supposedly favoured weapon. His face didn't light up as I had rather hoped to see, but the way his fingers curled around the grip in the bell guard was light of touch and comfortably confident. Under that slouching posture and assorted bundle of quirks he was as assured of his abilities as I was.

We would find out from the next two bouts if that assurance was deserved or simply arrogance.

Sabre. It was a speed game. It was all about the attack. The first to attack, the fastest to attack, the hardest to attack, the sweeping sabre had once been the blade of the cavalry and some sabreurs charged into their bouts with a speed and power as if they were still on horseback.

I preferred the sabre to the epee. There was an honest brutality in its cuts and slices, especially since the head and neck were targets. Oh, they were targets in epee too, but where the epee gored eyes and speared mouths, the sabre could cut and send its victims' heads spinning from their shoulders. It was a faster, cleaner and more certain kill.

I supposed it could be called the weapon of knights, riding in on their white horses to severe the dragon's head from its body and spill its poisoned blood over the ground, in the holy name of justice, and didn't everybody just love justice?

The captain had coerced one of the onlookers, a sabreur, into refereeing our bout. Our new referee got his salutes, but the poor fool was out of his depth the moment we stepped back onto the piste.

"Er….just to make it clear," he started with a nervous cough, having evidently been watching the epee bout, "we have right-of-way in sabre and double-touches don't count…"

"For God's sake, you idiot, Light's _competed_ in sabre," somebody, better informed, hissed at him from behind. "And if that new guy's fencing him, the new guy probably knows what he's doing too."

"Oh, I don't know," I decided to humour them as I pulled on the silver sabre gauntlet and flexed my fingers. "It might be worth checking, just in case. So, Ryuuzaki, how familiar are you with the sabre rules?"

I thought he might have snorted then, but he pulled down his helmet and snapped the clip to his mask, so it was lost to everybody but me. "As familiar as Light-kun is, I'm sure," his eyes were bright behind the helmet, "if not more so."

In stark contrast to the lazy slouch his shoulders had been for the epee, he straightened his back, and raised the sabre in its slightly adjusted _en garde_ , its point higher than the foil's.

"Right, right, okay." The referee laughed. "Sorry. Let's get started."

We tested the blades, the referee indicated the lines and it was time for the sabre bout.

" _En garde."_

Head, neck, torso and arms – the target area was coated in silver like dragon scales.

"Ready."

There was something different about him, about 'L', something had changed. It was small, I doubted anybody other than me could see it, but there was a new tension simmering on the piste as if some unknown and unseen stakes had suddenly been raised.

A strange thought occurred to me.

No. Surely _L_ couldn't be so childish?

He hadn't said much during the re-equipment break but what little he had said had been just the touch passive-aggressive, as if biting back words that he would dearly like to spit in my face.

He didn't look it, he hadn't sounded capable of it, but there was a very good chance that the man was angry. He was angry that he had lost the epee bout, and this time? This time he was going for the win.

I slanted the edge of the sabre and locked eyes with him down the piste.

I wanted him to know that I was glad he was angry - the great _child_ that he was - and that he was only going to get angrier because he was going to lose again.

"Fence."

Hands dropped.

In an instant shaped by a flying lunge, a blur of white, black and silver was in my face, sweeping round my parry with an attack so fast I heard it slice through the air with a whistle and it cracked against my helmet like thunder.

Green light flashed.

_Beep!_

"Point to my right!" cried the referee, sounding absolutely delighted before he remembered himself and asked, "Light, are you all right?"

I was all right, of course, although if I hadn't been wearing a helmet, that blow would have cleaved my skull in two. Actually if L had been any angrier it was quite possible that the helmet wouldn't have been much help at all. There were some intriguingly caved-in helmets in the kit cupboard.

"I'm fine," I said, more for L's benefit than the referee's, just to make it clear to L that I was prepared to be the grown-up in this situation, and that I wasn't angry with him over that point in the slightest, and was, most certainly, not plotting vengeance for this humiliation in the upcoming foil bout. "Nice point, Ryuuzaki. You don't mess around, do you?"

He shrugged. "He who strikes first wins."

I resisted the urge to go up and plant my fist with the sabre bell guard wrapped around it in his face, and, instead, chose to take a civilised moment to resettle my helmet and wait for the ringing of the blow to fade from my ears. L somehow managed to find a sticky-looking packet of caramels from nowhere and, lifting the chin of his helmet, made a grand show of eating them whilst waiting for me to regain my bearings.

_How dare he._

The next point I was ready, and when L got in close, I met his swinging attack in a parry quinte and a flurry of bright orange sparks that jumped off the blades. The echoes of the clash rang out the room with the sweetness of bells and the sharpness of gunshots. With the right-of-way mine, I riposted with a flick and cut a line across his wrist.

Red flashed.

_Beep!_

"Point to my left! One all!"

I watch him slink back to his starting line still smelling of burnt metal and flicking the end of his blade as if tapping out the count of the opportunities he had missed and mistakes he had made, and laughter bubbled up inside me at the sight of his retreating back.

He didn't like that at all.

But was this all alright? What would we he think of me if I continued to go for the win? There was something crucial about these bouts that I was still missing, I was sure of it. If I won this match I would score the best of three, and the foil match could go unplayed or uncounted in this game of ours. If he was testing me for something, would that benefit me and allow me to pass his test or would I fail by apparently preventing the demonstration of my foil skills? Was I being expected to throw this bout or perhaps even the next one?

What was I thinking? The circumstances of these bouts were already ridiculous enough without me considering throwing them away!

From across the piste I could feel his gaze. It was a promise of just everything he could and would do to prevent me from winning.

I stepped back and swung the sabre in a practice cutover, enjoying the oily mottled blue of tempered steel when it caught the light and the way his eyes snapped to the blade as I acknowledged his challenge.

* * *

The audience, to me, had always felt about as real and substantial as cardboard.

During that sabre bout, however, they may as well have been shadows gathering in the corners of the room, or not been there at all.

The fight was fast and vicious and dangerous, the footwork as deft and light as the blows were hard and heavy, the right-of-way stolen and stolen back from each other so often it might as well have been a tug-of-war, and everything upon the piste was more tangible and real than anything that was off it, because the piste existed in five dimensions, its fourth axis for victory and its fifth axis for death.

* * *

"Five-four to my right. Ryuuzaki wins!"

I tore off my helmet.

Actually, no, I didn't tear off my helmet. I could feel his eyes on me, watching still, so I removed my helmet with all the dignity and good sportsmanship as expected of a graceful loser, and didn't throw it into his face to crush that smug little self-satisfied smile _that I knew was there_ even before his mask had come off.

I extended my hand (shake hands, end this battle, on to the next one and claim the war), smiled. "That was a close game."

"Oh, it was." He shook out his hair and it stood on end like a wet dog after a mud bath, then took my hand to toggle it. A faint smile. "Tough luck, Light-kun."

_Tough luck? What luck?_

Don't insult me. Any man so long as he relied solely on himself determined his own luck.

L had trapped me at the very last moment with a disengage then slice to the wrist, a move I ought to have seen coming, but I had already been so certain that the point was mine I hadn't even considered the possibility of a counterattack in the making.

So I was punished for showing my intentions too early. So I laughed, as it were, a little too soon.

I was still the better man on this piste.

L was every inch the Liar I had analysed in his game footage, but it wasn't just his body language obscuring his intentions. The preparation he did, seeding the timing and the distance and the footwork for both his and my attacks, deep into the bout like landmines, were overlaid in decoys and masks and suggestions that were there to not just trip me into mistakes but invite them from me, so that I presented the very worst mistakes I could make all by my own hand.

It was humiliating and pathetic and I wanted to see him bleed for it, because few things were more honest than blood on the floor, whether you were the one lying in it or standing over it, but then this game would be closed and declared at a halt forever.

And that simply wasn't acceptable.

No game was worth playing if neither competitor was prepared to play to completion.

* * *

He watched me take up my foil with a thumb to his mouth and the glazed, fixed look of a reader scanning the pages of a newly found book.

"Light-kun is indeed a foilist."

"I thought you already knew that, Ryuuzaki."

"Oh, I had the observations of others and thoughts of my own, but nothing confirmed sufficiently to be able to classify as known."

I took wiring up as an opportunity to turn away and hold back the cutting remark I felt I was entitled to that, yes, 'Light-kun' was a foilist, and it was probably as obvious when I picked up a foil as when L had picked up a sabre, but _I_ hadn't been so childish as to openly gloat over it, had I?

* * *

Foil was my weapon. Its target area was small – the torso alone, no arms, only the lower part of the throat – which demanded precision and focus. Its attacks were skewering, clean, and very much, haha, on point. I liked to think it required a certain poise and finesse, and that it demonstrated a mind disciplined and civil enough to work within the boundaries of the weapon.

It was a light weapon, its movements small but its hits speedy; its bouts were close exchanges of parries, swift ripostes, disengages and counter-disengages - the upper hand, the right-of-way, your ownership and control of the moment, snatched back and forth and to be whipped out of your opponent's grasp, and in a fight between equals the speed of such a turnover was as exhilarating as it could be infuriating.

Footwork was crucial. It was crucial for every blade, but I never felt it more keenly than I did in the foil, perhaps because I felt very few things as keenly as I did with the foil.

There was little good in having a blade to argue with if you didn't have the footwork to back it up. Footwork gave you timing, footwork gave you distance. Controlling the footwork mapped out in the bout was controlling space and time on the piste, as well as leading the dance, and it was a dance, it was keeping step with your opponent, every step he took echoed by one of your own, either to drive him into a corner or lure him into a trap.

But more than that, footwork was stability, balance and the solid ground from which to launch my attacks and defence – in short, it was my convictions. Without it, I might as well be swinging at the air and submitting to whatever design for the bout L had in mind for me.

"En garde!"

It was a new referee again. We were getting through them quickly. I shrugged the thought aside and focused on the only things that mattered in this moment on the piste: The opponent, his foil – the argument he would present – and how to prepare him for his own fall.

I would force L to the dance to the tune of the footwork I laid out and coax the mistakes out of him, and I had no doubt he was planning exactly the same for me. We were both too good at what we did to make mistakes by our own. They needed to be triggered.

We would bring out each other's strengths in the attempt to draw out each other's weaknesses.

"Ready?"

The inside of my mask was hot and close. I could smell the steel of the mesh and taste the sweat. The padding at my neck and chin were damp and sticky. I could hear the caged thumping of my heart under layers and layers of cloth and silver and bone and blood, and see him, L, coiled and ready like a finger on the trigger of a gun.

Which way would he come from? How would he start this match?

_He who strikes first wins._

"Fence!"

A step.

Shoes creaked, soles squeaked on hard floor, heels landed with a whisper.

Another step. Cords spooled out behind us, tugging on our backs, clips clinking together.

My breathing, my pulse, in my ears; sweat running down between my eyes but everything so clear and everything so fine, all of the colours were on fire and L was a spectre hovering just out of reach, one moment a gleaming silver target and the next a lonely pair of eyes.

Eyes fixed on me. As they should be. Here on the piste, I was the problem that needed to be solved, the question that needed to be answered and by responding to his moves with countermoves the only proof that he was, for this moment on the piste, as real I was.

He couldn't afford to take his eyes off me.

We closed in, step by measured step.

I was going to pay him back for that sabre match. He probably expected this. A part of me raged that he would dare to predict my moves and do so so accurately, but that didn't stop me inching forwards and smacking his blade in a beat attack that was a little more violent than necessary, extending out to hit him at the collar.

A strike of metal on metal, and he captured my foil in a parry prime, riposted with a flick to the chest, which landed…

Flat! No lights, no sound, no point!

And I had him with a step back and a lunge, hitting him squarely in the chest before he could even begin to chase me down the piste.

Red flashed off the guard of his foil like sunset.

_Beep!_

"Point to my left, one-nil!"

I thought I saw him trembling as he slunk back to his starting line, his left hand clenched in a fist against the front of his jacket. I didn't laugh. I didn't need to. I simply stood on my starting line and smoothed out the long dark crease, smudged with grease, that he had left on my side from the flat blow and made sure he could see that his efforts had been in vain and were now completely void.

"Tough luck, Ryuuzaki," I called across the space and he didn't so much as flinch as curl up like a smiling mouth that had something bitter-tasting shoved into it. Humiliation, perhaps? Disappointment? Resigned acceptance that I had just dumped him into that trite self-consolatory category of 'only human'?

I hoped it was all of that and more and the blood burning under my skin agreed. The referee gestured for us to ready for the next point.

I knew the instant the man raised his foil - the next point L had in mind for me was going to hurt, either my pride or my body, and probably preferably both.

I crouched, coiled my muscles beneath me, shifted the weight onto my back leg, readying for the spring. Centuries of fencing history and perfecting the gear made it difficult to kill each other but humans had millennia of sheer bloody-minded stubbornness bred into us, and we could damn well bring each other down rolling in blood if we tried.

"Fence!"

An explosion of bright steel. Blades touched, evasions were caught, ripostes snatched and the corkscrew curls of circular sixtes twisted down the foils like gothic script, and I felt the blows in my wrists, my fingers, the resonance of them travelling up the sword core and my arm and rattling in my chest.

The tip of his foil dug between my ribs.

"Halt!"

We both stopped, breathing heavily. I bit down on a hiss of pain.

Both lights, green and red, were glowing to the side like emergency exits.

We had scored at the same time. I had a hit on him from the side, twisting round to skewer his left kidney; L was digging that foil-point into my plastron so deep I could feel it through the protective padding. His foil was straining, bent into the narrowest arch it could go. I could hear its metal creaking over the referee as the fool tried to untangle the right-of-way, flapping his hands in airy gestures that were likely supposed to describe our moves but looked more like a heron trying to stay aloft and alive after having been shot.

L muttered 'pigeon in distress' out of the corner of his mouth. It seemed as if we were on the same page, likely not for the first time during the course of these bouts, given how evenly we were matched, and likely not for the last.

I laughed, quietly, through gritted teeth. _Evenly matched! We'd see about that!_

" – ending on a final followed through point on his riposte, which would give the point to my right, bringing us to one all."

_Damn it! He got me!_

L went to his line, oozing smugness and twirling the foil in his hand, and I felt the bruise from his jab ache and smart as the skin stretched over it. It would be round and purple when the jackets came off like the touch of a bullet.

_Damn him to Hell and back again!_

"Light, are you ready or do you need a moment?"

"Of course, I'm ready!"

I stalked back to my line, keeping L just at the edge of my vision because with an opponent like this I needed to have my eyes on him. I had to look out for those smallest, tiniest shifts in weight, changes in stance and balance and hold of his foil that meant exhaustion, strain and uncertainty, anything I could take advantage of to get in the point of my blade.

When he slipped I needed to be there, ready to stab wherever possible.

" _En garde._ Ready?"

It struck me then that L liked to come in unusually close when driving home his points. It was an odd tactic. If he came in too close, his manoeuvrability should suffer and I could push him into backing himself into a corner he created all on his own, but on the other hand it was unexpected and unusual enough that it might just throw me, and if he got close enough that he was within my guard, I wouldn't be able to counter him at all.

I narrowed my eyes across the piste. His only seemed to stretch wider.

"Fence!"

He took the next point, and then a third – both, just as I thought, from sneaking down low and pressing in close, closer than I was used to anybody being able to fence comfortably in. It likely helped that he was as boneless as a squid, or some other invertebrate creature swum up from a deep sea abyss where the animals were all eyes and grey-white-pale skin in the dark.

Unease rippled through me, curdling into a spiteful, snapping fear, dripping poison into my ears with the whispers of the incredulous crowd around us as they watched me _losing._

Their opinions and assessment of my accomplishments, however, meant little to nothing to me. I didn't care for them.

It was L. All L - it was this man, this man who had come before me to stand in the way of my victory, with that ridiculous slouching _en garde,_ and the way he stood on one foot and scratched at his calf with the other, and seemed to magic sweets from his armpits. The thought of him watching me lose and gaining something from it, as if I was one more stepping stone of many for him to ascend to whatever it was people lifted him to, made me want to clutch my head and scream down the piste.

I closed in on him in silence, letting out breath by breath in controlled hisses between my teeth.

Three-one to him, I needed to get even and claw back those points, and so the next time L sped close into my range I kicked off the piste to meet him, hoping to make it too close for either of us and pushing him into retreat once I had thrown off his balance.

I had him with a stab at his ribs, a precise mirror to where he had caught me earlier. Red light flashed and the horn sounded, but L had put all of his weight into an attack that he was still following through and it glanced off my helmet…

There was a _twang_ and a snap, and something long, dark and whip-thin with a glinting silver tip span up by between us and over my shoulder.

"Point to my left…Oh, shit – EVERYBODY HALT!"

L stopped, a millimetre away from sinking the jagged tip of his snapped foil into my upper arm. He blinked as if a veil was lifting away from his eyes, or perhaps it was settling over them and forcing him, just for a moment, back into that bland waking dream everybody else was content to walk in.

I hoped that wasn't true. I needed him awake, truly awake. For the past two points we had been fencing recklessly, showing off tricks, flaunting to the crowd only a little less than to each other, and it was dangerous, vicious fencing but it was…

… _Fun. Alive. Real. Perfect. Complete._

Could he see that?

Surely he must be able to see it. Those deep-sea fish eyes had to be good for seeing something.

Couldn't he see how much more real everything was when we were on the piste than if we were anywhere else?

And this, this game. I had never been so pushed, pressed, or made to think or move faster and more forcefully than before this, and judging by how heavily he was breathing and the tremors in his gauntlet, he hadn't either.

L pulled off his helmet and peered down at his broken foil. It was club-issue, scratched all over the guard as if it had been attacked by chickens as a ritual for sword-baptism.

"This is unfortunate," he said. "I apologise for the inconvenience but I am going to need a new foil in order to win this match."

" – a new foil," somebody was saying, possibly the idiot captain, he sounded like a goldfish glupping in water, all of their insubstantial voices sounded muffled in my ears, as if through fog. "Somebody bring over the bag. He can use one of – "

"Mine."

Suddenly, L was looking at me. In fact, all eyes were on me but none of the rest mattered. The cardboard cutouts were only there to observe and applaud when the time called for it.

I hadn't realised I had spoken, but I could feel the hoarse echoes of my voice in my throat. "You can use mine. I have a spare."

"Light-kun is too kind," _'Light-kun' wants to pummel you to the floor and possibly take a proverbial scalpel to look inside your mind, but we can save that for another time,_ "but I have no interest in a pistol grip."

_Picky bastard._

"I have a French grip too." _Keep your eyes on me._ I wasn't going to let him look away. He should have realised that by now. He shouldn't even have dared think about turning his back on me for a moment until this was over. "And I have an Italian grip too if you're going insist on being so anally classical."

After a moment of consideration, he raised his left thumb to the corner of his mouth. "The right-handed French grip will do."

I didn't bother to ask how he knew I could fence with both hands. At this point, after long-realising that it was very possible that this was the none other than the real L before me, very little was going to surprise me, and whatever did, I couldn't afford to let it show.

I nodded at one of the gaping onlookers, who jumped, rushed away and soon returned with my spare foil.

I took it and bounced it in my palm for old times' sake. The red leather had turned dark with years of sweat and occasional blood from a blister.

"Thank you," said L, or at least the man who seemed bent on proving to me that he was - but _why?_

What was at stake that L would sacrifice his anonymity to me (and possibly the club – somebody who had seen his style of play ought to have worked it out by now, but typically everybody seemed to be as blind to what I could easily see as ever) for the sake of engaging me in this match?

If he believed in an eye for an eye and a law of give and take then this fencing match was to reveal something, but what could a fencing match reveal about me that could possibly interest L – ?

"You might be wondering what this is all for."

Bastard had not just read my mind. He couldn't have. I was unreadable. My own mother couldn't read me because I was written in strokes of a blade too fast for her to realise that she was being held off at swordpoint.

I let out that bright little laugh that left none in doubt that I was a nice people person really and a damn good sport, and not a person who hadn't tried to work out long ago why everybody around me seemed as flimsy and substantial as paper ghosts.

"I was under the impression this was a friendly, Ryuuzaki. Why? Haven't you been enjoying this? I've been finding these bouts rather fun."

He hummed, setting the test weight to the foil-tip and checking the response from the lights. The green light flashed. "I would like to think that Light-kun was taking me a little more seriously than purely 'fun'."

I allowed myself to frown and tried to sound a touch wounded, a little insulted, anything but amused. "Of course, I'm taking you seriously, Ryuuzaki. I wouldn't dare to show such disrespect to a swordsman of your obvious calibre by doing otherwise."

He widened his eyes. Anybody else, I would have said that they raised their eyebrows, but as it was, I had yet to see evidence that he had any. He struck me as a little amphibious. I wouldn't put past him to lack eyebrow genes as well as basic piste etiquette.

I shouldn't laugh. People can't help how they're born and if they lost out in the genetic lottery, then that's only so that luck could favour others, like me.

"Good," he said at length, handing the weight-test to the referee – a fresh one, the other had apparently overtaxed his brain trying to keep up and had vanished with the broken pieces of L's old foil. "Because you are the first opponent I have come across who may be my equal, and I am hoping that you won't disappoint me."

"I'm flattered, Ryuuzaki."

"Although there is one other who may prove me a worthwhile challenge."

"And who might that be?" I said over my shoulder as I returned to my line. I heard him do the same, although with a light whoosh of air as he gave my foil an experimental twirl I tried not to feel insulted by. "L the Liar perhaps?"

"Perhaps." We were opposite each other on the piste again, the red and green lights to the side and the murmuring of the crowd voiceless. He cupped his helmet in his hand, picked at some peeling sponge in the bib. "I was thinking of perhaps Kira."

I froze as if meltwater had been poured down my plastron collar. My breath lodged in my throat like a shard of ice.

And he was watching me, even as he pulled on his helmet, I could feel his hollow, hungry eyes through the mesh, as if trying to carve me up into the pieces he needed to fit the vision he wanted to create.

He extended his arm in a mockery of a simple attack. "You seem shocked, Light-kun."

I laughed. Ease of practice meant it came out as 'nervous-that-I-am-duelling-a-freak-with-a-death-wish' as opposed to the 'angry-that-you-dared-to-drop-that-little-bombshell-right-at-its-perfect-moment-you-utter-bastard' that was hissing in my chest.

"Come on, Ryuuzaki. Anybody would be shocked if they heard you considering Kira as an opponent."

"You wouldn't?" He seemed genuinely surprised and stopped the idle bobbing of the bladepoint, up and down, up and down like an infuriating metronome. "I hear he's very good. His kills are very clean, after all. One hit, straight to the heart. Extraordinarily accurate and likely very fast."

"He's a serial killer who's an insult to the sword and gives every one of us who fences a bad name!" I snapped, inwardly preening as other club members pitched in from the sides with cries of outrage and indignation. "Considering him as _competition…_ Ryuuzaki, you should be ashamed of yourself."

"My apologies, Light-kun," he said, and I immediately thought, _Liar._ "I had no idea this subject matter was so close to your heart. I should endeavour from here on to keep such thoughts about Kira and the likelihood of his fencing skill for more private discussions."

"It's a sick joke," I spat at him and I pulled my helmet over my face to declare that subject closed. "Now are you ready to continue?"

"I believe so."

I nodded to the poor unfortunate who had been volunteered by his peers to step up to the line, and new referee cleared his throat. " _En garde_!"

He visibly cowered as L and I, as one, sank down into our crouches and raised our blades to sixte. Pathetic, I wanted to snarl but he was soon gone from my perception as the space that was the piste enveloped us like hands enclosing a secret.

"Ready?"

I heard L's low mutter as loud and clear as if he had said it in my ear. "Three-two to me on your favoured weapon? Light-kun, I hope you are not going easy on me."

_Someday, I'm going to kill you and laugh over your defeated body._

I smiled down the arc of the foil, the bright steel bridge that curved towards his heart that was, for now, still beating.

"Why, Ryuuzaki, if you wanted me to go easy on you, you only had to say."

He paused, seemed thoughtful for a moment.

Then laughed.

It was a strangely warm but fitting sound.

The referee dropped his hands. "Fence!"

* * *

"Five-four to my left! Winner is to my left, Light wins!"

The referee shook our hands and darted off into the crowd with a wan expression of relief that the match was finally over. The crowd thronged around us, chattering and gabbling various sycophantic drivel until the captain shooed them off, telling them that if they were so inspired they could get back to their own bouts and put in the work to climb up to mine and L's level. None of them had the minds for it, but their optimism was precious really.

They left us to unclip our body-cords and shake hands in relative silence.

"Light-kun has beaten me. I suppose that was to be expected, but I am somewhat out of practice, especially with the foil."

L didn't sound as if he had expected the defeat at all but neither did he sound disappointed. He might have been deliberately denying me the satisfaction of his acknowledgement of defeat, but somehow, the thought didn't bother me as much as it usually would have.

I shook my head. "It didn't feel that way."

I took off my helmet and pushed back my hair, wiped the sweat from my face with my gloved hand before pulling off the gauntlet too, tried to ignore the growing hollowness that was gnawing at my insides as time carried us on, second by second, away from the end of the match. "It's been a long time since I've fenced that hard, or been given such a challenge."

I waited for him to finish shaking out his hair (it was a mane, like a dog's, or a wild boar's, or if I was going to stick with the deep-sea theme, a very spiny sea urchin) then I extended my right hand. "Thank you."

He looked at my hand for a long moment. Took it tentatively like something poisonous. "A pleasure, Light-kun."

He gave my hand the same mechanical up-down shake as before then dropped it to wipe his hand on his breeches. I thought of that shadowy hollowness gaping wider as the handshake signalled the true end of the match and our time to step off the piste.

Noon had come and gone during the match. Our shadows were sliding dark and stretched from the starting line stripes as if creeping ahead to the benches, ready to sit and wait for another game like more good little shadows in a world of shadows.

It was a sad joke. As if I would be fencing again today, not after this game. In fact, I couldn't confidently say that any other game would ever be worth the effort.

And yet – as I collected my epee and sabre from the side of the piste and went to switch off the scoring lights – something was different today.

It wasn't the burn of muscle fatigue or the throb of stripy bruises making themselves both known at last, neither was it the feeling, for once, of having truly made an effort, of being spent and exhausted and every limb heavier than my full fencing kit-bag.

For the first time after a match, with all of our helmets off and the scoring box silent and dark, with the fading chill of his handshake on the skin of my palm, the world was still in colour.

I was off the piste, and yet I still felt alive.

"Light-kun is highly skilled." L had approached me, his footsteps quiet. He was unscrewing his body wire from the French grip with a click. "If it would so please you, I would like the privilege of sparring with you again."

He dangled my spare foil in front of me by the finger strap like a feather toy bouncing in the face of a cat.

I reached for my foil, and I wanted to snatch it from his hands just as much as I wanted to never take it back, because the moment I did I just knew the world would go back to its cardboard parade of sleepwalkers and I would be forced to pretend I was sleeping again - I might as well be dead.

But, in the end, what did it matter? The only place I ever felt truly awake was on the piste and if I had to pretend to be as dead as all the sleepwalkers in between the bouts, it was simply business as usual and I had become so skilled at pretending – what a shame it would be to let that hard-earned skill go to waste.

I smiled back, ready to close my ears and eyes and let go of the thrill of the piste, and took the foil from his hand. "It would please me greatly."

"Then I'll look forward to more games to come." L suddenly stepped in close, his eyes wide. He peered into my face. "Light-kun is staring. Is there something the matter?"

They weren't fading.

The colours, the clarity, everything that felt bright and real and true under the gaze of a perfect opponent, they were still there.

I blinked. Blinked again, and L continued to be there as real as he had been on the piste.

I didn't understand, and as soon as I had that thought I was almost tempted to repeat it for the sheer novelty of thinking it until I remembered that to not understand was a weakness that I could never afford.

The match was finished. We had saluted and shaken hands and our helmets were off and our masks for the rest of the world were on (and I knew he wore one too). Usually this was where I stepped down from the piste and let grey mundanity close over my head and hope I didn't sink too deep.

And yet L was still there and so was I, my hand on a leather grip the colour of old blood, his fingers still laced through the thin black strap, and both of us were real, still real and made real by each other.

I could still feel my own heart beating behind the bone bars of my ribs and the blood, thick and warm, flowing through my neck and pushing time through my body, as time extended and the moment grew.

I realised what was wrong, and it wasn't anything wrong at all – it was something that was terrifyingly, exhilaratingly right.

_I wasn't off the piste._

"I think," I probed the moment with words and it stayed, solid and colourful, "after all that fencing I'm feeling a bit thirsty. There are some questions I'd like to ask as well. What would you say to a drink?"

L was picking at the sponge coming loose in the padding of his helmet again. He hummed. "Well, you humoured me with these bouts. The least I could do for you is answer your questions and a drink would certainly not be unwelcome. However, before we go on with this – " He looked up from his fussing. " – There's something you should perhaps know."

_If I wasn't off the piste that meant the battle wasn't over._

"Oh? And what would that be?"

_En garde._

L made an odd movement with his free hand, as if trying to shove it into a pocket of a pair of jeans that were a piste hazard and needed to be permanently banned from the gym. He looked vaguely uncomfortable then turned to face me.

_There is a perfect moment._

"I have a suspicion," he began slowly, scraping the strands of hair out of his eyes, and a distracted part of me marvelled, 'What do you know? The amphibious caveman had eyebrows after all', "that you, Yagami Light, are Kira."

_Ready?_

_In that moment, everything lives by the sword._

_Fence!_

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!


End file.
